Tigers dominate highest-paid Detroit athletes list again

Associated Press and Getty Images; some images were supplied by the teams

The Detroit Tigers dominate the 2017 Crain's list of highest-paid Detroit athletes, making up six of the top 10. Clockwise from top left: Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Anibal Sánchez, Justin Verlander, Jordan Zimmermann, Justin Upton.

The Detroit Tigers dominate the 2017 Crain's list of highest-paid Detroit athletes, making up six of the top 10, another legacy of their late owner Mike Ilitch. See who's ranked where on the list of those blessed both athletically and financially.

Quick hits & list changes

Here are some takeaways from the list, which is based on base salary for 2017:

The top 10 remains unchanged from last year.

The Tigers have 12 players in the top 25 in 2016, but only nine this year.

The total combined salaries of all the players on the list is $316.1 million.

The average salary is $12.6 million, down slightly from last year's $12.7 million.

The average age of the players in the top 25 is 30.3 years old. Victor Martinez is oldest at 38. Andre Drummond is youngest at 23.

Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander are tied with the fourth-highest MLB salaries this season at $28 million each.

Four players are gone from 2016's top 25:

Tigers center fielder Cameron Maybin, 29, who made $8.1 million last season, was traded in November to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Shortstop Erick Aybar, 33, now with the San Diego Padres, made part of his $8.75 million last season with the Tigers after coming over in an August trade with Atlanta.

The Lions let offensive tackle Riley Reiff, 29, leave in free agency. He made $8 million in 2016 as part of the four-year, $7.9 rookie deal after the 2012 NFL Draft. The Vikings signed him March 9.

The Tigers released Mike Pelfrey last week. They had been due to pay him $8 million this season on a two-year, $16 million deal signed before the 2016 season.

The Detroit Tigers again dominate the annual Crain's list of the 25 top-paid professional athletes, including six in the top 10, but that could change in coming years.

Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, who died in February, had established a reputation for doling out enormous contracts to star players, deals that were more in line with a large-market club rather than a middle-market team such as Detroit. The billionaire pizza baron did the same with his Detroit Red Wings over the years, too, before the National Hockey League established a salary cap.

Will his heirs continue such spending? The conventional wisdom has been that the Tigers' payroll will slim down over the next few years, perhaps even radically so if the team opts to shed stars via trades. Son Chris Ilitch now runs the team, and in February he told reporters at spring training there is no mandate on payroll. However, he signaled that the team will concentrate on drafting and developing talent more than seeking it via writing huge checks to free agents, as his father did. He did not specifically rule out a splashy signing if it fit a team need while in contention.

For now, the team will pay more than $200 million this season — $153 million of that to eight players — in a bid to get back to the World Series.

Contracts are influenced by many factors, but chief among them are a league's salary cap and an owner's spending tolerance. Major League Baseball has no such payroll limitation beyond a luxury tax that deep-pocket owners (including Mike Ilitch) have been willing to pay. The other three leagues ranges in their salary limits and rules: This year, the National Football League will cap payroll at $167 million, while the National Basketball Association is $94.1 million. The NHL has the lowest cap at $73 million. For context, in 2004, the year before the league's work stoppage led to a salary cap, the Red Wings were spending nearly $80 million on players.

See Crain's complete list of Detroit's highest-paid professional athletes here, and read more about each of the top ten players here.